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The National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) has released the updated Being Relevant Matters Integrated Academics guide. The guide was funded through a grant program created by the ACT Foundation for members of the National Network of Business Industry Associations.

NATEF says its 32-page Integrated Academics guide is designed to provide a road map for instructors to help high school students who might prefer a career/technical education option over college prep if they could meet ever-increasing high school graduation requirements. Not only does the CTE option provide many high school students a choice, but often it is the incentive to stay in school and optimize their educational opportunities

“The concept of integrating academics into CTE has been around for some time and the results of such integration have been relatively positive,” says Trish Serratore, president of NATEF and Automotive Youth Educational Systems (AYES).

“But in most high schools that offer CTE programs, English/language arts, mathematics and science are still being taught in separate, sterile environments that afford little opportunity to apply the knowledge gained to real-life challenges and problem-solving opportunities.”

In the update process, teams of automotive and academic teachers, representing the content areas of English, mathematics and science, identified academic principles and subject matter content from their respective disciplines that are embedded in various NATEF automotive tasks, according to Serratore. “Automotive students must demonstrate academic mastery of these requirements in order to be successful and advance in their chosen career.”

The principles and subject matter content within the Integrated Academics guide are formatted into descriptions that include templates for crafting credit-worthy integrated academic or stand-alone classes in English/applied communications, mathematics and/or science for students enrolled in automotive technology at any of the three NATEF program accredited levels of maintenance and light repair (MLR), automobile service technology (AST), and master automobile service technology (MAST).

In addition to highlighting the academic content embedded in the various NATEF tasks, to the extent possible, each NATEF task and its related academic content have been aligned with Common Core State Standards and STEM connections.

For detailed information regarding the crosswalk of tasks and the respective academic content, see www.natef.org.

The publication also contains a listing of Employability Skills that were added to the 2013 NATEF program accreditation standards.